Except for You
by Talerico
Summary: The suffering of his father and a hard childhood due to an absent mother, turned Keith a firm believer about the nonexistence of love. He built great barriers around him, and isolated himself, ready not to be hurt or rejected, ready to avoid it before someone had the chance. And he clung to that thought as he clung to his mother's knife ... until Lance-stupid-McClain arrived.


**Based in the PastelPeach's animation on YouTube: "The Only Exception"**

**Warnings: **Angst, wrote before seven and eight season, Canon divergence, gender dysphoria (Keith), mention of Shallura and one-sided Lotura, mention of mpreg too.

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**Translation made by InfernusCerberus, all my love to them. **

**Thanks, Sthefynice, my beloved sister and provisional beta.**

**This work doesn't have a permanent beta reader. If you know a person with knowledge in English and Spanish who wants to help, we will appreciate the help.**

**I hope you like it.**

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**Chapter 1 – **When I was young

When he was young, Keith saw, just for an eternal second, his dad cry.

It wasn't a sob nor a whimper, it was a loud scream, cursing the fierce air. Screaming about a lost mother, of whom Keith remembered only a little warmth, and then with those sad eyes that always looked at him, he wept until the tears of the desert cleared his.

Then, Keith promised himself never be in love.

He never understood the sad eyes of his father until that day, his calm temperament and soft smile never gave him away. It was enough that Keith asked his father: "What is, mom?" after a very tired school day, for his father to react and then his father was surprised; his jaw was broken like a broken doll and his eyes trembled, wet. He cradled Keith between strong and trembling arms, as if the child were the wounded, and when the nap time arrived, when he was supposed to be asleep, Keith heard him.

"Why, Krolia?! Was it so easy to leave!? So easy to leave a human with a child who doesn't know how to raise him!?" His shouts were louder than the thunders of the desert, and when Keith peeked through the door of the house, he noticed that not even the raging wind could go against Ryou Kogane's sadness. Only the heavy rain managed to silence the torn cry, and the man fell on his knees cursing the wind.

And Keith promised himself _to never feel love_.

Because if true love existed, he wouldn't let his father suffered, or that his mother had ever left.

That was the firts and last time that Keith saw his dad cry.

**-ExceptForYou-**

At nine, young and gullible, Keith truly believe his faher died from sadness. It doesn't matter how much the medics told him about a strange bacteria consumed his lungs until he colapse after their house burned down, leaving them with nothing. And of course, being his dad the one who took the worst part trying to save him. Keith's lucid young mind believe fervently that his father's lungs had been eaten by the crying he never let out and the fury he never drained, that's why the smoke of the fire managed to finish it so easily.

At the orphanage, the children told him that the fault was really _him_. The fact of raising a child alone, one so useless and stupid.

Keith choose not to believe them, but a little part of himself, accepted it.

And as he grew, the knife in his pocket, passed from his mother to his father and from his father to him, throbbed with his curse:

The promise not to love so as not to suffer, because it was so, was destined to suffer if he dared to trust in non-existent love. Like his mother with his dad, and his dad with him.

And life didn't give him more than a resounding affirmation in the form of orphanhood and eternal incomprehension.

**-ExceptForYou-**

When he met Shiro, something called his attention to the newly graduated cadet. The expressive face and the soft line of his kind eyes brought him a slight flash of his father, smiling and in a good mood, in one of those days were the sun seemed to take away everything bad that his mother has left in her absence.

Shiro was indolent to his persistent gaze as he explained the operation of the Academy, and how it was a great opportunity that such an exclusive program was giving scholarships to any boy who wanted to enter it. Even for them, poor orphaned children, as long as they pass the entrance exams. The exciment on the classroom was evident in rushed whispers and bright open eyes with wonder, before the images of the infrastructure of the academy in the holographic player, quick shots of smiling cadets and activities that stirred the entrails of emotion just by seeing them.

"Do you believe it?" Whispered one of his classmate, Melissa or something, in his ear. Its looks like she didn't find anybody to gossip and believe Keith was a good option. The boy scoffed and turned away, while Melissa continued with her incessant monologue about why Garrison was amazing.

Keith wasn't surprised. He knew Garrison, _everyone_ knew Garrison.

First program in the United States to take the job of space explorer to the classrooms of the youngest, raising the best astronauts from the bosom of their childhood. Exclusive, glamorous, extremely expensive, for **prodigies.**

Prodigies like Takashi Shirogane himself. Keith really didn't believe that an introvert and problematic kid like him could be a prodigie, he never stand a chance.

And he thought that Garrison's furor would come to an end, once the golden boy put out his stupid reproducer and left, but instead, five minutes later, the teacher called him outside, after talking for a while with the young officer from Garrison in the hall.

She, completely shocked, pushed with anxious hands her worst student to bring him closer to Shirogane, as if exposing him to the presence of such a man would hit him some of his good attitude.

"Hi, Keith" He bowed, once the teacher entered the classroom again, his smile was kind and, again, brought the distant memory of his dead father. That fact angered Keith to the point of showing his displeasure, crossing his arms in front of the man.

"How do you know my name?" Wasn't the kindest answer, Keith didn't care.

Shirogane didn't answered right away, he lowered himself a little more, to compare the height of the nine-year-old while he was taking something out of his pocket, a well-taken-care picture of a big family, serious and proud, dressed in strange clothes.

"Do you recognize this man?" He pointed to the left corner of the picture, where a familiar face make tickled in Keith's brain.

"That's dad. Do you met my dad?"

Shiro smiled, knowing that the rough little boy's barriers were already down.

"Ryou was my half-brother" And while the bomb exploded with stunned silence, Shiro added: "I come to take you, Keith."

**-ExceptForYou-**

Living with Shiro meant a change for Keith. He was used to being the troubled boy, so Shiro's soft patient voice that always tried to make him see reason was a conflict that led Keith to screams and tears. It was exceedingly confusing to have someone to care for him, when he had already built his perception of the world based on the fact of not being helped or understood.

He was a problem! A failure! How Shiro couldn't understand that?!

He refused the psychological help, refused Shiro's help and any compression or affection that came from him ... because it wasn't right, because he was _problematic._

At age ten, they said he suffered from a negative-defiant disorder. At eleven, they considered the autism, at twelve, the antisocial disorder and at thirteen ... depression.

It was obvious that Shiro wasn't prepared to raise a boy alone, in his expensive rich kid's house and with his busy position as captain. It was also more than obvious that the family of Shiro and apparently of Keith, didn't want to know anything about the burden that the rebel of the family who even dared to change the honorable name of the Shirogane, had left after his death.

Ryou or Keith, they were no longer the Shirogane's problem.

It was a shame, under the family's perspective, that Shiro didn't believe it, and the young captain didn't even dare to revoke Keith's changed surname when he adopted him under his wing.

So, finally, when Keith fed up Takashi's patience for stealing the hovercraft hidden inside the garage that was previously his father, he thought that he finally had given his third strike and would return to the orphanage because, definitely, not even Shiro could withstand such level of anarchy in his own home.

"You do pirouettes!" Keith let out a surprised gasp when Shiro grabbed him by the shoulders as he entered the room with his thunderous footsteps, the governess did as well. After Keith escaped his punishment-isolation by hitting the neighbor's son, who by the way, was the governor's son, and who escaped in the most showy way possible, maneuvering with an old hovercraft throughout the complex most exclusive residential area in Texas. They expected everything, except Shiro's very positive excitement.

"But, Mr. Shirogane," the governess began.

"You played tricks!" Shiro interrupted her. "And you've never touched a hoverbike before!"

"N-no," Keith denied, as perplexed as his annoying governess.

"I saw you on the security videos, Keith you are natural in this! You gave pirouettes that a Garrison cadet in second level has problems to perform!" Shiro continued gesturing with absolute emotion in his voice. Keith was still glued to the chair where the governess had seated him in the middle of the large and luxurious living room of the house to wait for the good scolding that Shiro, apparently, wasn't going to give him. "Don't get me wrong, you're punished. I have to pay six thousand dollars bill for the broken window of the Stanford's but-"

There were a lot of excited words in Japanese before Shiro spoke English again.

"I'll enroll you in the Garrison! They will accept you immediately!"

From that day Keith understood that Shiro, without a doubt, did believe in him and that he wouldn't give up so easily. He cried on his shoulder that day, and allowed himself, for the first time in years, to open his confused heart to someone.

**-ExceptForYou-**

Being Shiro the only person that maybe Keith could trust a little in his life, he decided that he should honor Shiro and the ridiculous amount of money he was spending for his place in Garrison. His good behavior didn't last long, Keith was in his late teens, his body bubbled with hormones and there were injustices around him more often than usual. One day a boy made fun of his hair, and that's where everything started.

He easily earned a reputation as the troubled boy, spoiled brother of the golden boy of Garrison, who was widely believed to belong to a family of high status.

His good grades in class, his excellent performance in the simulators and good performance in hand-to-hand combat thanks to the private classes of martial arts in which, according to Shiro, was something that any Shirogane had to pass, did nothing but reinforce the suspicion collective towards his person by teachers and students.

Keith never denied anything, the only approval he needed was Shiro's.

He grew slowly, to everyone's surprise, Shiro was a good example of the genetics of the family and Ryou became a tall man, a budding teenager with such a history as Keith was, he was thin and small and called everyone's attention. Keith also felt different, the excessive attraction to the opposite sex wasn't manifested in his time, he didn't find funny the jokes about womens, he felt different with each passing day, under his skin clung the changes he couldn't find in other male teenager ... or in humans.

But once he has his growth spurt on summer, no one else paid attention.

Keith, however, kept feeling different. Slowly the attraction for other people began to emerge, and when in seventh grade a boy with whom he shared one of his classes was confessing with a shy "I like you more than the girls" his constant stutter and little grace when gesturing ... Keith understood that he liked boys.

With panic seizing him, all he could do was knock down the poor boy's last tooth with a punch.

**-ExceptForYou-**

The disappearance of Shiro in Kerberos reminded him of what it was to miss someone, how unnecessary it was to generate attachment or affection... how stupid it was to trust, how foolish it was to hope that someone would stay by his side... that Shiro wouldn't leave .

His bitter mourning reached his grades, falling abruptly as a result, his behavior in Garrison worsened and it was a matter of time before he was expelled for bad behavior.

To Keith it didn't hurt, he was in Garrison for Shiro, he would do something of his future, for Shiro. And now that Shiro wasn't there, nothing mattered. He took his suitcases, took his knife and the red scarlet hovercraft that Shiro gave him for his birthday and went to the desert, to the small house that had once been a simple annex of the shack whose ashes had already vanished.

Then he was dedicated to search, some form, some indication that it channeled him, as well as he obtained the annotations of his father of a lion ... a Voltron.

He paid no attention and kept wandering among his father's objects until one night, a vision woke him up with the image of a blue lion and, in the distance, the image of Shiro, returning.

Then he clung to that feeling and the possibility he posed. He searched and inquired about the surroundings, hacked the little information he could get from Garrison, and found out about ancient aboriginal legends.

And then, a light pierced the starry sky.

And everything changed.

**-ExceptForYou-**

The communications were cut off, the strange sound of something invading the atmosphere resonated and Keith could see it, the thing he was waiting for, what the hieroglyphs told, was happening. He never believed that the event itself was Shiro.

"No no no. YOU won't save Shiro! I'LL save Shiro!" Inside the makeshift lab of the barracks, Keith frowned, the dark-skinned boy returned the gesture as he grabbed Shiro's other arm.

"And who are you?"

"Who? The name's Lance, dude"

"Eh?"

"Oh, please!"

Lance kept throwing reasons why they were rivals and definitely had to remember it.

"Nothing?" Keith denied, taking another step with Shiro's heavy body in tow."I'm, you know, the boy who confessed to you in seventh grade."

"Oh."

_Oh._

"That boy..."

The boy he liked in seventh grade, the one he punched, furious that someone really liked him.

"You're a cargo pilot."

"Well now I'm in fighter class, thanks to you leaving" And somehow the accusation seemed hurt, the narrow blue eyes of Lance, the ungainly and ungraceful boy who had made Keith's heart quicken now become a man, they looked hurt.

And it hurts Keith.

"Well, congratulations." And as always he put aside that pain, swore to himself that the only person who mattered was now unconscious in his arms, ignoring everything that was alien to him would make the unnecessary and annoying go away.

Lance and his damn smile, unfortunately, stayed.

He went with him in the Blue Lion, stayed with him as a paladin, laughed with him during the stupid test of Allura and his green space goo.

"We are a good team." And he smiled at him in his arms before falling unconscious after having given them the perfect distraction to defeat Sendak.

Keith swore, by the knife in his belt, by the tears of his father, that he wouldn't fall before Lance... he wouldn't beat him, he wouldn't make him suffer... because love wasn't something that worked for him.

Because Lance doesn't deserve being with someone who didn't work.


End file.
